Channeling Treebeard
It was Treebeard the Ent who said "I am not altogether on anybody's side, because no one is altogether on my side."
That's me on prevention of mass shootings in general, and gun control in particular. Several years ago, I used to comment on both of these questions here. In my innocence I thought that the perspective of someone who had grown up with firearms and still knows how to use some of them might matter. This was also the viewpoint of one who spent seventh grade being savagely bullied, and did not commit mass murder despite as much justification and means as anyone ever had; I thought that might count for something.
It doesn't matter to anyone, because a question once resolvable has become almost beyond resolution. There are two sides, period. Someone like me who tries to introduce an alternative perspective, or facts that don't fit the preconceptions, can expect to be demonised. If one introduces an alternative view and know how firearms work, they must watch out for the torches and pitchforks.
For example, when I reached adolescence in the early 1960s, numerous adult gun owners were far more progressive in their views than most knee-jerk anti-gun people today. They had grown up seeing the worst possible consequences of firearm confiscation in the form of the Spanish Civil War and never forgot it. Mention it and you get denial. Like most Americans, most anti-gun people never heard of the Spanish Civil War or the issues involved. A typical answer is to assert that no true progressive would ever support firearms ownership. My answer to that is to say that's an example of polarised thinking.
Similarly, we are in the land of the blind when it comes to management and treatment of mental illness. What afflicted the Newtown killer? We have only media speculation, because we have a set of psychiatric protocols that forbid informed speculation and forbid disclosure by any clinician who might actually have seen the child. Despite the numerous consequences, we still have psychiatric professionals who can't bring themselves to act in ways that prevent a mentally ill patient from doing harm to him/herself or others.
If you can actually read this (which is rather old) I'd like to know that. This is my first shot at seeing whether Blogger will actually support my new Linux Mint OS. On the other hand, if all you want to do is bash the poor schmuck trying to carve out some room in the middle of this verbal war, don't bother. I won't post it, but I will keep score and perhaps swipe a few tangential quotes.
That's me on prevention of mass shootings in general, and gun control in particular. Several years ago, I used to comment on both of these questions here. In my innocence I thought that the perspective of someone who had grown up with firearms and still knows how to use some of them might matter. This was also the viewpoint of one who spent seventh grade being savagely bullied, and did not commit mass murder despite as much justification and means as anyone ever had; I thought that might count for something.
It doesn't matter to anyone, because a question once resolvable has become almost beyond resolution. There are two sides, period. Someone like me who tries to introduce an alternative perspective, or facts that don't fit the preconceptions, can expect to be demonised. If one introduces an alternative view and know how firearms work, they must watch out for the torches and pitchforks.
For example, when I reached adolescence in the early 1960s, numerous adult gun owners were far more progressive in their views than most knee-jerk anti-gun people today. They had grown up seeing the worst possible consequences of firearm confiscation in the form of the Spanish Civil War and never forgot it. Mention it and you get denial. Like most Americans, most anti-gun people never heard of the Spanish Civil War or the issues involved. A typical answer is to assert that no true progressive would ever support firearms ownership. My answer to that is to say that's an example of polarised thinking.
Similarly, we are in the land of the blind when it comes to management and treatment of mental illness. What afflicted the Newtown killer? We have only media speculation, because we have a set of psychiatric protocols that forbid informed speculation and forbid disclosure by any clinician who might actually have seen the child. Despite the numerous consequences, we still have psychiatric professionals who can't bring themselves to act in ways that prevent a mentally ill patient from doing harm to him/herself or others.
If you can actually read this (which is rather old) I'd like to know that. This is my first shot at seeing whether Blogger will actually support my new Linux Mint OS. On the other hand, if all you want to do is bash the poor schmuck trying to carve out some room in the middle of this verbal war, don't bother. I won't post it, but I will keep score and perhaps swipe a few tangential quotes.
Labels: gun control
posted by Uncle | 22:54
4 Comments:
Read-ee did I. Linux rules or roils lures.
I too grew up in gun bearing, firing, owning areas. While not a small or large animal slayer myself, I did enjoy the half deer my uncle would butcher and plunk in my grandparents' freezer.
I simply want background checks and registration of all guns, particularly those semi-auto handguns and rifle class ones designed only to kill other humans. To hear the absolutist gun-rights folk smear such as un-American, anti-Bill-of-Rights, and other lunacy.
Fact is, if you have to own one or 37 of the kill-one-or-many-people weapons, there needs to be a way to trace these back to the owners. For the life of me, I don't see any justification for not wanting to register guns.
Forget the lame analogies of cars, prescriptions and such being registered and accountable. Americans already have 300 million guns and continue to arm. Ownership is real; shouldn't registration/accountability be as well?
Bambi lost this battle in the musket days. Humans can speak up.
There are more reasonable people than one dared hope, and it is they--us--who have to make this thing work. I want to keep the string going now that I'm connected again, so look for the next installment.
Oh, I have so much to say, haha.
First of all, I am so obviously a city girl through and through and so I don't get the gun thing. I don't understand hunting. I don't understand wanting a gun to protect yourself. My not understanding it, however, doesn't mean I wanna stop anyone else from it. But what I don't understand and would like to stop is the assault rifle thing. I don't see *any* reason a private citizen should have access to weapons whose only purpose is to efficiently kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible.
I've already said everything I have to say about how fucked the system is re getting very sick individuals treated if they don't want to be. The whole thing is just broken. One thing that I've been thinking about listening to the coverage of the Aurora guy's trial (and maybe changing my mind about) is the effect of violence in video games and movies etc etc. Banning assault rifles might not have prevented him from killing a bunch of people considering he also knew his way around explosives, and while he was in mental health treatment, his provider apparently wasn't able to figure out he was planning on violence (what do you call the guy who graduated last in his medical school class? doctor). IME, what someone who is psychotic/delusional fixates on is heavily influenced by their environment. I could be wrong, but frex, as far as I'm concerned when D was hearing voices, there was exactly zero chance he was gonna decide that was god speaking to him because I didn't raise him to go to church. So in preventing these massacres, maybe not only do we need to look at keeping people from getting weapons that are capable of killing many many people and more accurately predicting and getting help for ill people who are a danger, maybe we need to, as a society, stop having all these nonstop images of killing many many people in our "entertainment." I dunno how we do this since this shiz makes money, but whatever.
Finally, some irony (?). Right before Christmas I was having company and I wanted to have all the votives in my dining room lit. I dug out my candle lighter and found it was dead, so I went to CVS to buy a new one. They keep them behind the counter now and I had to *show ID*. To buy a Bic Luminiere. I'm not sure what kind of mayhem they thought I was gonna get up to with that, but god bless them for keeping us all safe. ::mega eye roll::
Luminieres don't kill people, people kill people. LOLOL send that to the NRA and ask why.
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